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during the whole of its tortuous course, these willows being the descendants of trees 

 planted at the Mission Station, far up the river, by the writer's father, before the year 

 1840. The banks of the river are muddy at low water, and the twigs and branches 

 broken off by the rushing stream, borne up or down by the successive daily tides, are 

 deposited somewhere, and forthwith take root, and finally grow into trees. This process 

 has been going on all these years, and the effect of these self-planted fringes is highly 

 picturesque. At the time I speak of, however, the banks were clothed, almost to the 

 water's edge, with native vegetation, and in all the ancient Maori clearings there was, 

 not far from the river, a belt of tupakihi, makomako, and other native shrubs, which 

 swarmed with small birds of all kinds, chiefly Parrakeets, Korimakos, and White-heads. 

 The last-named was certainly at that time the commonest bird of the country, its 

 cheerful, chirping note being heard on every hand, whilst its nest might be confidently 

 looked for in every suitable clump of undergrowth. Now the banks are silent, and the 

 White-head has gone! You may wander for miles through the forest and never hear its 

 once familiar note. It is impossible to assign any sufficient reason for the disappearance 

 of a bird whose food consisted of insect life, which still abounds in the woods ; for, although 

 the White-head was sometimes taken on the tuke snare, attracted by the tawhiwhi flowers, 

 it was probably the minute insects frequenting the flowers rather than the honey that it was 

 in quest of. 



A few years ago, accompanied by my son, Percy, I made an expedition into the wooded 

 ranges at the back of Waikanae in quest of Huias. We were disappointed in the object of 

 our search, but after tramping on foot over some ten miles of bush-paths we were rewarded 

 by finding a pair of Popokatea, or White-heads, positively the only ones I had even heard 

 of on the mainland for a period of ten years or more. I brought down both with a small 

 charge of dust-shot, and they made good specimens. 



Later on I met with the species again in the same locality, and obtained several specimens ; 

 but here the bird had changed its habits, and was frequenting the lofty tree-tops instead of 

 the low undergrowth. I can remember when this bird was absolutely the commonest and 

 most numerous species in the North Island. It is now one of the rarest, being met with 

 only on the Little Barrier Island, in the north, and on Kapiti, in Cook Strait. Another 

 bird equally common was the W^ood Robin (Miro australis), and this has disappeared just 

 as completely, my last specimen having been shot at Kaitoke in the spring of 1880. 



I was glad, still later on, to announce, at a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical 

 Society, the appearance of a pair of this now rare species in the bush on the northern shore 

 of the Papaitonga Lake.* 



It is satisfactory to find that other observers have met with it also further north. 



Mr. J. C. McLean reports ('Ibis,' 1892, p. 251) that on September 3rd, 1889, he came 

 upon a flock of eight or ten White-heads in the thick manuka scrub at the Lagoon, on 

 the East Coast ; and that, while having his lunch under some large kowhai trees, he observed 

 a single White-head hunting in the tree-tops, now and then stopping to sing a pleasant little 

 song of half-a-dozen quickly repeated notes. He adds : " On July 29th, 1890, while shooting 

 in the same district, I saw a flock of White-heads on a manuka flat, and shot male and 

 female. They were feeding in the trees among the creepers, mingled with a flock of Blight- 



:;: Professor Newton accepts my suggestion that the disappearance of the White-head and some other New Zealand 

 Passeres is, in a large measure, a displacement due to the introduction of exotic birds, which, being morphologically 

 higher and constitutionally stronger, speedily establish themselves at the expense of the lower, weaker, and earlier 

 forms ('Dictionary of Birds,' p. 1037). 



Vol. ii— 17 



